Building a cookbook library from scratch? Looking to round out your collection? These cookbooks, written by the inventors, improvisers, entertainers, and home economists that made our 100 Greatest American Home Cooks of All Time list, are your ticket to the wide world of home cooking.

All hail the 100 Greatest American Home Cooks of All Time, Epicurious' pantheon of inventors, improvisers, entertainers, and home economists who changed the way we all eat today. First, we gave you our list of the greatest home cooks in America. Now, we're giving you a list of all of their cookbooks, so you can bring their tips, tricks, recipes, and writing home with you. Hungry for more of their stories? Dive in right here.

Kenji López-Alt'sThe Food Lab is a 958-page scientific exploration of American home cookery. But, in addition to cold, hard scientific fact, the book is full of nerdy whimsy and weird, MacGuyvered experimentation that will give you definitive answers about how to cook pasta, season burger patties, and so much more.

Marion Cunningham is an icon of humble and satisfying American home cooking. After she was discovered by James Beard at the age of 50, Cunningham authored the revision of the classic Fannie Farmer Cookbook and wrote The Breakfast Book, which is worth having just for her extremely important contribution to American cooking: the perfect yeasted waffle.

Helen Nearing was an original proponent of vegetarian cooking, veganism, and the importance of whole grains—long before it was cool. Simple Food for the Good Life is the place to go for still-surprising lessons—impervious to trends—on the importance of seasonal and organic cooking and vegetable-forward recipes, as well as some tough-love advice on life.

4. Betty Rosbottom: Betty Rosbottom's Cooking School Cookbook

Betty Rosbottom opened one of the most influential American cooking schools, La Belle Pomme, in Columbus, Ohio in 1976—and for any home cook in Ohio, she's a guru. For those who aren't able to take her classes in straightforward home cooking, Betty Rosbottom's Cooking School Cookbook offers 250 recipes and tips from her legendary class.

5. Nathalie Dupree: Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking

Natalie Dupree is the author of a series of Southern home-cooking books that make making throwing a grand—or simple—Southern party possible, even if you don't have a big front porch that overlooks the Charleston riverfront. The hospitably and warmly written opus,
Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking is a good place to start—it includes 600 recipes for bringing Southern cuisine home.

You may have heard a few hundreds of your friends mention Julia Turshen's raspberry jam buns, or her turkey meatballs. Simple recipes—and fun lists at the back of the book—are designed to inspire those who might have been intimidated by the kitchen to get in there and cook.

7. Ina Garten: The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

The original Barefoot Contessa Cookbook was published before Ina Garten was the star that we know today—and it was a bestseller based on the strength of its simple-but-special recipes and nothing else. This cookbook changed the way Americans thought about cooking and entertaining at home—and the nature of cookbooks themselves—when it was published in 1999.

8. Arthur Gold & Robert Fizdale: Gold & Fizdale Cookbook

Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale were a two-piano ensemble who met while studying at Juilliard. But, they were also incredible cooks. Writing a food column for Vogue—and entertaining all of the famous musicians and dancers of New York City—they eventually wrote The Gold & Fizdale Cookbook, bringing this casually elegant cuisine into the homes of all Americans.

9. Marian Burros: The New Elegant But Easy Cookbook

Burros' eight-ingredient plum torte—the New York Times' most-requested recipe—is reason enough to own this cookbook. But the rest of its pages are filled with simple—and yes, elegant—recipes for entertaining from a writer whose New York Times career spanned 27 years.

10. Rachael Ray: 30-Minute Meals

27 seasons and 27 shows—not to mention three Emmy wins, dozens of cookbooks, and a magazine—demonstrate that Rachael Ray's no-nonsense approach to quick and affordable weeknight cooking has left a lasting impression. This cookbook is where it all started.

12. Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso: The Silver Palate Cookbook

The Silver Palate was a New York City specialty food shop that evolved into a series of cookbooks. Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso are most famous for their iconic recipe, Chicken Marbella—a sweet, salty, nearly perfect dish. It can be found alongside 350 other classic dishes that inspired passion for unfussy food and entertaining in American homes.

13. Tamar Adler: An Everlasting Meal

Tamar Adler is a former Chez Panisse cook who wrote an ode to an unlikely food category: the leftover. This cookbook is all about using parts of last night's meal to make the next one—a practical and economical approach that will stand the test of time.

14. Paula Wolfert: Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco

With her cookbook Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco* (and the eight other cookbooks she authored) Paula Wolfert introduced American cooks to preserved lemons, clay pots, and the world of spices that makes Moroccan food incredibly delicious. Dive in and explore for yourself.

15. Martin Yan: The Yan Can Cook Book

Martin Yan is America's professor on Chinese cooking—and has been since 1978 with his PBS series Yan Can Cook. He's also written more than two dozen cookbooks that have helped bring one of the world's greatest cuisines to American kitchens.

This cookbook is full of food that's prepared intuitively and resourcefully, based on whatever ingredients are around—and the mood of the cook and the kitchen. Grosvenor wasn't all that interested in fancy meals, but rather wanted to "Turn the daily ritual of cooking for your family into a beautiful everyday happening."

17. Lynne Rossetto Kasper: The Splendid Table

We all know Lynne Rossetto Kasper's voice from her radio program, The Splendid Table. She'll only be on the air with her Midwestern kindness and singular cooking knowledge until the end of the year, so it's time to snatch up her cookbook, which offers spectacular recipes from Northern Italy's Emilia-Romagna, homeland of balsamic vinegar, Parmesan, and tortellini.

18. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: Cross Creek Cookery

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is best known as the author of the book The Yearling, but she was also a passionate home cook who took pride in her home cooking. Her memoir Cross Creek featured such lush descriptions of food that fans begged her for the recipes, inspiring her cookbook. Recipes like mayhaw jelly and alligator-tail steak show how rustic and refined central-Florida cooking could be, and create a snapshot of a time when people lived off the land because they had no other choice.

19. Martha Stewart: Entertaining

Ever heard of her? Martha Stewart's first cookbook, Entertaining, was published in 1982 and is now in its 35th printing. Sure, her pursuit of absolute perfection can be jarring and a little intimidating, but the book is full of sage advice and recipes that—even today—inspire us all to be as badass and food-obsessed as she is.

20. Mary Harriman Rumsey: Charleston Receipts

Mary Harriman Rumsey founded the Junior League, an all-female volunteer group that put out at least 200 community cookbooks, all terrific snapshots of real regional home cooking in America. Start by delving into the 1950 original, Charleston Receipts.

21. Leela Punyaratabandhu: Simple Thai Food

Leela Punyaratabandhu has a Thai-cooking blog that's indispensible to Thai-food-obsessed home cooks called SheSimmers. Her blend of approachable authenticity makes this often-intimidating cuisine crystal clear. Start with Simple Thai Cooking, and then continue with her second book, packed with recipes from Bangkok.

22. M.F.K. Fisher: The Gastronomical Me

As our editor David Tamarkin wrote, "The Gastronomical Me gives you conflicting desires...Mary Frances Kennedy conjurs in American cooks the urge to stay put and keep reading, yet also to put the book down, run to the market, and start cooking."

23. Rose Levy Beranbaum: The Cake Bible

Rose Levy Beranbaum confidently titled her first book, published in 1988, The Cake Bible. And in fact, it inspires a near religious devotion—especially the Downy Yellow Butter Cake. She's also got bibles on bread, pie, pastry, and baking generally, which are just as well-regarded, simply because the recipes work every single time. Buy the book—and also try her brioche recipe.

25. Marcella Hazan: The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Marcella Hazan is famous for her magical tomato sauce. But, butter, onion, and canned tomatoes aren't the only ingredients she magically transformed into a beautiful and simple dish. The Essentials of Italian Cooking, considered one of the best cookbooks of all time, taught Americans the fundamentals of Italian cooking. Her cookbook is full of tips that will stick with you because they are borne of a lifetime of experience at the stove.

26. Pati Jinich: Pati's Mexican Table

Pati Jinich, born in Mexico City and based in Washington D.C., cooks Mexican food in a way that's approachable to American cooks on her PBS show, Pati's Mexican Table. Her cookbook offers warmth and approachability just like her show, making real Mexican food achievable for anyone at home.

27. James Beard: The James Beard Cookbook

James Beard saved America from forever huffing down Jell-O salad and crepes Suzette. He taught us that we could have our own cuisine—and one that didn't just mean fake post-War food and stiff, unappealing European cuisine. There are still lessons to be learned from James Beard, and they come in abundance in his eponymous cookbook.

28. Melissa Clark: Dinner: Changing the Game

Melissa Clark has written almost 40 cookbooks and has a long-running column in the New York Times. She's chipper, energetic, and charmingly nerdy—and of course her recipes, as David wrote, "hit the mark where decadent and doable meet." Her newest book takes aim at dinner, redesigning the meal to fit our contemporary tastes and hectic schedules.

29. Philomelia Hardin: Every Body's Cook and Recipe Book

Philomelia Hardin's volume in the American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection was published in Cleveland in 1842, and it's believed to be the first cookbook printed west of the Alleghenies. The book was one of the first in America to emphasize local specialties, and it's just as illuminating to read now.

30. Molly Wizenberg: A Homemade Life

Molly Wizenberg's blog, Orangette is beloved not just for its recipes, but for its emotional, heartfelt, and incredibly well-written stories. The same thing can be found and held in your hands with her memoir, A Homemade Life which just so happens to feature recipes as delicious and reliable as her blog, too.

32. Andrea Nguyen: The Pho Cookbook

Andrea Nguyen's series of cookbooks on tofu, dumplings, and bahn mi makes it possible for home cooks to achieve the flavors of the Vietnamese cuisine her family brought with them to America when they immigrated in 1975. Her latest cookbook delves into the complex world of Vietnam's national dish—a soup that, as she says in the book, is more than just soup.

33. Steven Raichlen: Planet Barbecue!

"Steven Raichlen reminds us that barbecuing is an ageless technique of home cooks around the world—his 2010 book Planet Barbecue! was an exploration of the form that took the author to 60 countries, from Kenya to Laos." —Sam Worley

34. Alice Waters: The Art of Simple Food

Alice Waters "brought her radical politics into her radical food, which she then, somehow miraculously, brought into the kitchens of American cooks," as Sam Worley said. For recipes and cooking advice from the woman who helped introduce America to the locavore, farmer's market, seasonal cooking, farm-to-table cooking that's everywhere now, start with her cookbook The Art of Simple Food.

35. Patti LaBelle: LaBelle Cuisine

Patti LaBelle isn't just a singer. Epicurious editor David Tamarkin notes that LaBelle's cookbook "created a genre of cooking all its own." There are three things you need to know about it, he says: "1) It's a little bit decadent; 2) It's a lot Southern; and 3) American's mac and cheese game wouldn't be nearly as strong without it." So, what are you waiting for—get your sweet potato pie and cheesy noodles on.

36. Ruth Reichl: My Kitchen Year

Despite decades of guiding the food world expertly as a restaurant critic, food writer (of bestsellers like Tender at the Bone, and editor, as Adina Steiman says in her profile of Reichl, "The kind of recipes Reichl shares in her memoirs, and cookbooks like My Kitchen Year, celebrate everyday simplicity, not flash."

37. Alice B. Toklas: The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book

"It was only after her lover Gertrude Stein's death that Toklas got around to writing The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. Though the combination memoir-cookbook could be lauded as a culinary-literary achievement (or simply praised as more interesting than 99 percent of the cookbooks published before or since), it is chiefly known for the inclusion of hashish fudge, a recipe that is in fact not fudge at all...The recipe caused a stir...and without meaning to, Toklas became a pioneer of edibles." —David Tamarkin

38. Trisha Yearwood: Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen

Country singer Trisha Yearwood's book "is no celebrity vanity project," says Adina Steiman. "Not with family recipes like warm and cheesy Black-Eyed Pea Dip served in a Crock-Pot and Grandma Yearwood's Sweet Iceberg Pickles, cured with old-fashioned pickling lime rather than salt or vinegar."

39. Chris Kimball: The Cook's Bible

"Chris Kimball built America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated, Cook's Country, and now Milk Street with a healthy dose of New England pragmatism and an unabashed love of American food. As the leader of elite squad of talented recipe doctors, Kimball tossed aside inherited cooking truisms in favor of insights (cook pasta in a pot of mushroom sauce, macerate the rhubarb for pie before baking) earned through countless hours clocked in the, yep, test kitchen. The payoff for us lazy, mortal home cooks? Not just better recipes but an arsenal of dinner-party cooking trivia." —Adina Steiman

40. Heidi Swanson: Super Natural Every Day

"Swanson's vegetarian recipes (and her head-spinningly lovely photography) manage to straddle the healthy/indulgent line with Cali-style effortlessness. And unlike some other allegedly health-minded writers, Swanson's spot-on flavor instincts and skillful use of on-trend ingredients mean that we can trust her never, ever to throw ashwagandha into our minestrone." —Adina Steiman

41. Laurie Colwin: Home Cooking

Laurie Colwin's kitchen memoir doesn't just let you in on her recipes and essential tips—she also shares kitchen failures and disastrous meals with a diary-like intimacy, inspiring you to cook without fear of failure.

42. Richard Olney: Simple French Food

"Richard Olney might have been born in Iowa, but he died in his true homeland, France, where he spent his career crafting cookbooks, including the often not-simple-at-all Simple French Food...Olney was prickly and persnickety in personality and his recipes were the same way—which, of course, is what ultimately made them effective." —Sam Worley

43. Jenny Rosenstrach: Dinner: A Love Story

On her blog, Dinner: A Love Story and in her cookbooks, Jenny Rosenstrach "shares honest, funny takes on the challenges of feeding children (and oneself) while offering genius strategies for cooking and serving...simple, delicious recipes that will inspire any parent to stay committed to family dinner." —Anya Hoffman

44. Jim Lahey: Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook

When Mark Bittman ran Jim Lahey's no-knead bread method in his New York Times column, home cooks finally felt like they could hack making bread at home. The inapproachable was suddenly approachable. The founder of Sullivan Street Bakery's first cookbook My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method allows for a deep dive on what has now become a whole style of breadmaking. But, the lessons aren't over. Lahey's new offering, The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook, delves into the world of sourdough and Italian treats from the bakery.

45. Jessica B. Harris: The Welcome Table

Jessica Harris is a culinary historian, but she's much more than that. She teaches and she writes cookbooks and memoirs like The Welcome Table, offering recipes for African American heritage cooking that preserve the cuisine, ensuring that people can still cook it.

47. Judy Walker: Cooking Up a Storm

Judy Walker was the food editor at The New Orleans Times-Picayune when Hurricane Katrina hit. When the holidays came after the storm, she asked readers to send in recipes that would preserve home cooking in a city where cooks were separated from their kitchens and their family recipes. The compiled collection of recipes gives us all access to the traditions of a city with a beautiful, and indestructible, culinary history.

48. Abby Mandel: Abby Mandel's Cuisinart Kitchen

Abby Mandel opened the Green City Market in 1999 in Chicago, creating the city's first sustainable farmers' market. She was also one of the first food writers to truly master the possibilities of the food processor, and in Abby Mandel's Cuisinart Classroom, she gives tips and tricks for cooking with the machine.

49. Ali Maffucci: Inspiralize Everything

Ali Maffucci made the spiralizer happen—to the point where it became a nationwide low-carb obsession. Dive into her cookbook to learn all the ways you can use the tool for fast and geometrically interesting meals.

51. Alma Lach: Hows and Whys of French Cooking

Alma Lach studied French Cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu in the 1950s, just like Julia Child. But, she dedicated most of her career to teaching children to cook through cookbooks and television shows. Still, her adult cookbook, Hows and Whys of French Cooking teaches French technique and cuisine to the American cook with a step-by-step, straightforward approach that clearly comes from a natural communicator.

52. Craig Claiborne: The New York Times Cookbook

"As food editor of The New York Times, Craig Claiborne changed the way that food is talked about in the United States, broadening the scope and the depth of the paper's coverage while introducing readers to recipes from cultures beyond France and Italy." —Sam Worley

53. Deborah Madison: The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

When Deborah Madison published the encyclopedic Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone in 1997, she changed the way we thought about vegetarian cooking—no more lentil loafs or meat substitutes. Instead, she celebrated vegetables for everyone—even the non-vegetarians.

54. Tammy Wynette: The Tammy Wynette Southern Cookbook

The country singer grew up on a farm in Mississippi where cooking was not optional. In her cookbook, she lets us in on the secrets of the cooking of her homeland, including a recipe for Farmer's Vegetable Soup that's full of vegetables that she'd grow herself on the farm, like okra, tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, and lima beans.

55. Harold McGee: On Food and Cooking

Both fancy restaurant chefs and home cooks look to Harold McGee for definitive, scientific answers about cooking. On Food and Cooking is a rich tome that offers answers for every question the curious cook has ever had, like why meat gets tender as it stews, or why egg whites turn opaque when they cook. If you don't just want to cook, but want to learn how cooking works, this is a book you need.

56. Joan Nathan: Jewish Cooking in America

"In 10 cookbooks over the course of 40 years, Joan Nathan has painted a complex (and delicious) portrait of Jewish cooking and culinary traditions—with burekas from Israel, pretzels from France, and fluffy matzo balls just the way they like them in America. And as her latest, King Solomon's Table, proves, her hunger to preserve heritage and uncover the stories behind these recipes remains as ferocious as ever." —Adina Steiman

57. Julia Child: Mastering the Art of French Cooking

"What to even say about Julia Child? American cooking would look starkly different without her—Child popularized French cuisine, sure, but because we saw her try, frail, fumble, succeed, and savor on our television screens, she also brought to American kitchens the conviction that even the fanciest food should be fun." —Sam Worley

58. Amelia Simmons: American Cookery

Published in 1796, American Cookery teaches cooking techniques from Britain and France, but calls for ingredients that grew abundantly in America, like corn, turkey, squash, and cranberries, helping to define American cooking for generations to come.

59. Sandor Katz: The Art of Fermentation

Sandor Katz is in many ways the originator of the home fermentation craze we're in right now. When you're tending to your scoby and your kimchi and your pickles, think of him—or better yet, buy his book.

61. Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer: The Joy of Cooking

The Joy of Cooking was originally published in 1931, and it has served as a starter manual for cooking for millions of American households ever since. With a conversational tone, helpful illustrations, tips for saving time, and a condensed recipe format, it is indispensable for cooks all over, and since it's been revised and updated for its 75th anniversary edition, it remains a super-relevant classic.

62. Mitchell Davis: Kitchen Sense

Mitchell Davis, the president of the James Beard Foundation wants to convince you that everybody can cook exceptional food in the kitchen. He's full of useful tips, like adding cream cheese to mac and cheese for extra-tangy creaminess. Kitchen Sense is full of insights from a truly masterful, down-to-earth home cook.

63. Eugenia Bone: Well-Preserved

Eugenia Bone is the canning queen. Well Preserved came out when Americans felt a renewed interest in DIY food crafts. But don't just get her book because canning and jam-making is trendy—Bone wants you to preserve food because it's thrifty, delicious, and an amazing way to eat nature's bounty at its peak all year long.

64. Dori Sanders: Country Cooking

Dori Sanders is fourth-generation South Carolina farmer who will teach you the joys of "make-do" cooking. Cooking her recipes in your own kitchen will connect you to the scarcity and abundance that was behind the creation of many of the South's most delicious foods.

65. Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer: Canal House Cooks Every Day

As our editor David observed, "At Canal House, there is a very specific way of doing things: carefully, lovingly, and above all, very, very simply." For recipes that are meticulously tested, highly seasonal, and so easy to prepare that they're achievable for the novice cook and the expert alike, look no further.

66. Dorie Greenspan: Baking from My Home to Yours

As Epi editor David Tamarkin wrote,, Baking is a classic "that is intentionally homey but also revolutionary. In Baking, American bakers have everything they need: recipes for any cookie, cake, or pie they could want, and Dorie's powerfully empathetic voice of encouragement. Baking was the first of a string of similar books by Greenspan, each of them packed with triple the amount of recipes of most other cookbooks." Her latest is dedicated entirely to her otherworldly talent with cookies.

67. Vincent Price: A Treasury of Great Recipes

The late actor's cult classic cookbook, written with his wife Mary in 1965, might have been the first celebrity cookbook. Full of recipes that span the globe, you'll find hot dogs from Dodger Stadium alongside European haute cuisine.

68. John Thorne: Outlaw Cook

69. Pearl Bailey: Pearl's Kitchen

The Tony award-winning actress and singer wasn't about being glam in the kitchen. Rather, her cookbook preaches simplicity and economy in home cooking, with recipes full of wisdom and quotable advice that works for everyone.

70. Abby Fisher: What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking

"Fisher was born a slave, went to San Francisco after the Civil War, and with her husband opened a business selling pickles and preserves—both of which earned medals at the 1880 San Francisco Mechanic's Institute Fair. In 1881, at the request of some 'lady friends and patrons,' Fisher dictated (she and her husband were illiterate) a book of recipes, What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking, that's just as fascinating as American history as it is as a cookbook.

71. Betty Crocker: Betty Crocker Cookbook

72. Julie Sahini: Classic Indian Cooking

"I've eaten with Julie Sahni, I've cooked with Julie Sahni and, most important I learned how to cook Indian food from Julie Sahni, especially her two first books, Classic Indian Cooking and the incomparable Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking. I don't suppose she would mind if I called her the Marcella Hazan of Indian food and, for me at least, that's a perfect description." —Mark Bittman

73. Fannie Farmer: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

Originally published in 1896 as The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, what became known as The Fannie Farmer Cookbook was a true wealth of information. Trained in "domestic science," Farmer offered not just recipes but wisdom on health, nutrition, and the science of food—all in a quirky, inimitable voice. Bonus: the book was revised for the modern era by the legendary Marion Cunningham.

74. Grace Young: The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen

In The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen and The Breath of a Wok, Grace Young chronicled family recipes before they were lost to her parents' fading memories and captured the spirit of cooking in an often-misunderstood pan. Buy both of these books, and your home-cooked Chinese food will never be the same again.

76. Pam Anderson: How to Cook Without a Book

"In How to Cook Without a Book, Anderson reminds us that we don't need a recipe once we understand the fundamentals behind a dish—an approach that many food writers, including Epicurious food editor Anna Stockwell, find particularly inspiring. Ironic, then, that this former Cook's Illustrated executive editor is also a master at creating never-fail recipes, too." —Sam Worley

77. Beatrice Ojakangas: The Great Scandinavian Baking Book

Veteran baker Beatrice Ojakangas brings Scandanavian cooking—once a completely unknown realm for American cooks—into the American kitchen, teaching how to make seemingly complex Scandanavian pastry and desserts in a completely unintimidating way.

78. Edna Lewis: The Taste of Country Cooking

In The Taste of Country Cooking, Lewis poetically detailed the daily life and food of her Freetown, Virginia childhood. The cookbook was published in 1976, and it made her a legendary voice in the world of American cooking, illuminating a world of African-American cooking that went way beyond typical ideas about soul food.